The present invention pertains to mobile communications and more particularly to the transfer of packet data parameters during a packet data communication session.
A mobile station (MS) couples through a radio access network (RAN) and a packet data serving node for access to packet data applications such as email, streaming video or web browsing packet data services. A packet data inactivity timer is associated with the various packet data services, supported by the network. When the packet data inactivity timer associated with one of the active service instances expires, the BS transitions the packet data service state from the active/connected state to a dormant state by releasing any traffic channels associated with the call.
The 3GPP2/TSG-S Standards Development Organization recently approved the use of a realm configured packet data session dormancy timer feature (RC-PDSDT). This allows the packet data inactivity timer to be configured by the type of packet application in use, the Quality of Service assigned to the service, user profile information, or other session related parameters. The inactivity timer is stored on a AAA server (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting) in the packet data network.
In order to support the AAA based inactivity timer feature, the base station controller needs the packet data service inactivity timer once the service type is determined. The AAA server uses the information received during the packet data call setup to obtain the associated packet data inactivity timer from the AAAL database.
In the current IS-2001 (IOS) specification, it is not possible for the packet data serving node to initiate transfer of any packet data parameters or information to the radio access network during an active or a dormant packet data session. The IOS standard currently does not support any procedure that can support this feature or any other feature which requires a transfer of packet data session parameters to the RAN. The only current operation of the PDSN is to initiate a release of an active or dormant packet data service. The PDSN initiates this release procedure by sending an update message to the packet control function (PCF). This is the only use of the update message currently approved by the IOS standard.
Accordingly, it would be highly advantageous for a PDSN to initiate a transfer of any packet data parameters required to support a packet data from call to the radio access network without completely tearing down the connection between the packet data serving node (PDSN) and the radio access network under current IS2001 IOS standards.